ÁùºÏ±¦µä

Dear English Department Faculty:

Please accept the submission of my portfolio, which includes a sample of the papers I have written this year. I am hopeful this will adequately illustrate my proficiency in having met the expectations and outcomes necessary for placement directly into English 102 for the Spring XXXX semester.

I am a non-traditional student. Prior to returning to school, I worked as a paralegal for eight years. I have also worked as a junior copy editor for a bilingual ad agency. I have extensive real-world experience in written and oral communication, as it was an essential part of my job description.

In each of my compositions you will note my communication skills to be more than adequate in presenting complex ideas in a straight-forward and thoughtful manner. My papers required extensive research and demonstrate my skillset and diligence. I recognize that I would benefit from attending an APA 7th edition formatting seminar or counseling session given by the Writing Lab in order to better hone my skills in, and feel more comfortable with, this format.

The first paper I would like to present is my very first University of ÁùºÏ±¦µä, Reno scholarly paper, which I produced in my Characteristics of Students with Mild to Moderate Disabilities class Spring XXXX. It is entitled, “Altering Devaluing Perceptions/Optics with Respect to Disabled Individuals and the Disabled Community.” I believe I met many of the learning objectives for English 101 in that paper alone, as it was done in APA format and required me to “recognize, articulate and respond to different rhetorical contexts, practice strategies for purposeful, concrete development of topics (i.e. by using writing to record, explore, organize and communicate), and interpreting, analyzing, discussing and evaluating a variety of readings.” This paper also required me to “use multiple drafts and peer review to improve my own texts.”

My second submission is a scholarly paper for the above-referenced class entitled, “Civil Rights for All: An Argument for Inclusion in the General Education Setting for Disabled Persons.” This paper further illustrates the English 101 requirements to “use generating, organizing, revising and editing strategies that are appropriate to specific writing situations, use reflection to examine personal experience, expertise, writing process and sources to compose.” In addition, it more than adequately illustrates my ability to “write understandable, efficient sentences” and “control general conventions of usage, spelling, grammar and punctuation in standard written English.”

My third submission is a reflection paper for my HDFS 202.1001 Introduction to Families class. The requirements of this paper were to write based on a question regarding the previous week’s lectures. The question assigned was, “After reading Chapters 2 and 3 in our textbook, how do you think the history of a group of people affect postmodern family life generations later, particularly when it comes to race/ethnicity and immigration? Why are these histories important? Does the history of your family affect your family today?” This paper is entitled “Post Modern Family Life.” Although this submission was an informal paper, it clearly meets a core objective to “effectively compose written…texts for a variety of…purposes.”

Finally, my fourth submission is my most recent scholarly paper, which purposely was designed by the professor to be an informal version of an APA paper. It is entitled, "Family Interview – V.O.," and is a research paper in which I interviewed a person of my acquaintance about her family of origin and family of procreation. It required intensive research and several interview sessions with the subject of the paper. It also required careful analysis of the information I was collecting and how it could be applied to the theories we had been studying all semester.

The aforementioned paper also met the core objectives for English 101 as it fulfilled the objectives requiring students to “be critical consumers of information, able to engage in systematic research processes, frame questions, read critically and apply observational and experimental approaches to obtain information.”

I can also provide an example of the PowerPoint presentation from the disabilities class if required; however, it is not in .Docx format. This presentation provided me the opportunity to not only co-produce a multi-media presentation, but it also provided the opportunity to orally present the information to a classroom of peers. I would also like to note that I did receive A grades for all of my papers and presentation presented here.

I know I still have a great deal to learn, but I feel that I would benefit from starting at a place that is germane to my skill level. I truly appreciate your consideration of my portfolio.

Respectfully submitted,

Name Omitted